Enduring the slow train round the West Riding

SIR – Michael Henderson (Comment, April 22) hits the HS2 nail on the head.

To me and those who like me live in the centre of the North, the so-called Northern Powerhouse is invisible. Our views have not been sought. The leaders and disciples of the project seem to be either self-appointed or government appointees who chirrup the tune they are required to do.

Getting to London from the North by train is easy. Getting around the North is not. That’s essentially the North’s transport problem.

We live about 40 miles from Manchester, yet it takes almost as long to get there by train as it does London. Liverpool takes much longer.

Thanks to rail cuts, a train journey to Manchester or Liverpool, Crewe or Shrewsbury means the first hour and a half spent in a circular tour of the West Riding, at no point more than 30 miles from the starting point.

High-speed trains are needed in large countries. They are pointless in a small island like Great Britain. Use the money to put back the strategic routes lost in the Sixties and Seventies – in particular the short Skipton-colne line, to make a massive difference for a few million pounds in cost. David Pearson

Haworth, West Yorkshire

SIR – Michael Henderson is right that East-west is as important as Northsouth. Money wasted on HS2 would be better spent upgrading the line from Felixstowe, the UK’S biggest container port, to reduce the number of lorries on the already overloaded A14. Paul Hayward

Stowmarket, Suffolk

SIR – The point of HS2 is capacity – to run trains that cannot be run on the existing railway. Non-stop trains to Birmingham are no good to people at the stations they don’t stop at. HS2 will take non-stop trains off the lines with stations, to be replaced by trains that do stop, to the benefit of commuters as well as local and interurban travellers.

As for time savings, locations well beyond Birmingham will benefit from the outset, as HS2 trains run on to Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester. William Barter

Towcester, Northamptonshire